The two forms of nurturing that support healing with food

When we overeat, we tend to use food in fairly typical ways.

One of these ways is using food for comfort – eating for stress relief, to self soothe, and as a source of softness, care and tenderness.

In my classes, I call this using food ‘as a mother.’

When food is a ‘mother,’ we’re using it as a relational substitute.

Food is not just food, but a mothering presence – a source of nurturing and comfort, a source of empathy and attunement (a way to feel ‘felt,’ seen and understood), and a source of stress relief.

Overdoing and using food for a ‘treat’

One of the patterns that tends to go hand in hand with this tendency is overdoing.

There may be areas in your life where you feel like you’re too hard on yourself – where you feel like you’re pushing yourself too hard or asking yourself to do too much. This internal pressure can feel oppressive and painful.

One of the ways you may cope with this stress is to treat yourself with food. For example, people will often share with me that food is their one or primary source of comfort or pleasure.

In truth, most of us use ‘things’ to relax to some degree or another – whether it’s with a dessert, a glass of wine, or a favorite TV show. Of course!

But when this pattern becomes excessive or compulsive, it creates a lot of pain and frustration.

Why setting boundaries can feel so confusing

This can bring you to a challenging place:  where you want to set some boundaries or structures around comfort or stress eating, and yet you also want to do so in a way that doesn’t feel overbearing or punishing.

This can be especially tricky if you have relational trauma, and eating is a primary way you feel loved.

When food is a substitute mother – a warm, attuned loving presence – setting any kind of limit or boundary with food can feel like abandonment or neglect, a removal of this motherly love.

Many, many people have told me how food is the primary or only place where they feel deeply loved – and that removing this source of love feels like a giant emptiness, hole or void.

Likewise, so many have shared with me that setting any limit with food feels like punishing themselves. Cognitively they know the limits are helpful. But emotionally, it’s a different experience.

Alongside these strong feelings that come up around limits, there’s also another part of us that wants structure and limits, for limits and structures are a powerful and primary way we feel protected, nourished, and cared for.

Caring for the feelings that arise

What this can create is a double bind, or a push-pull – where you may have a desire to grow or make changes, or to set some boundaries with food, but you also feel afraid.

This mix of feelings is very understandable, and makes so much sense. And it can feel like these feelings are ‘getting in the way’ of your healing.

It can make us want to ‘remove’ or ‘get over’ these feelings so we can heal. I know I had a lot of drive to ‘fix’ myself and my painful feelings that kept me so caught in food – which often left me feeling like I was steamrolling over really tender places in my heart. Ouch!

In truth, our tender feelings aren’t in the way. They aren’t something we need to ‘get over’ to get to our ‘real life.’ They’re something precious arising, asking us to pause, and to offer care.

From a heart perspective, they’re openings and opportunities.

Here are a few things that can help:

Combine softness with strength:  Both forms of nurturing are necessary to have a healthy relationship with food.

You need the warm, nurturing, yin, empathetic caring that helps you feel cared for and safe when you’re experiencing pain, overwhelm, or discomfort.

And you need the solid, strong, steady yang of boundaries, limits, and structures. This yang form of nurturing helps you feel protected and softens the anxiety about the ‘free for all’ that you can feel around food.

Get help for trauma:  If very strong feelings arise when you try to create limits with food, or if you recognize that you have trauma, I highly encourage you to get support. Working with a therapist or a support group can make all the difference in healing and unwinding the pain underneath overeating.

Healing this trauma can help soften the very understandable resistance, alarm, and fear that can arise when you try to set limits or boundaries with food.

Take the next step of growth. If you feel the desire to integrate greater power, structure, or boundaries in your relationship with food, you may be entering a new stage of growth.

The yin qualities of nurturing, compassion, mercy, and gentleness, grace will still be a part of your journey.

And you may be feeling inspired to nourish, support, and embody the yang qualities of love – the forms of love that arise as boundaries, no, fierce protection, sovereignty, and power.

While this place may feel a bit new, or uncertain, this is a great place to be! For something is yearning to be born in you, and in your relationship with food.

Why it’s important to face your relationship with power

Facing your relationship with power helps you integrate the compassionate mindfulness that brings kindness to overeating with the grounded sovereignty of self leadership, facing limits, and implementing loving discipline with food.

It’s how we move into a middle way with food without veering so much into the extremes of excessive permissiveness or excessive rigidity.

It’s a powerful combination!